


I Am My Beloved's

by Ardatli



Series: Profs!AU [5]
Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M, Schmoop, boys are dorks, nothing but schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1575923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ardatli/pseuds/Ardatli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At some point, Teddy figures, they're going to have to grow up. Do grown-up stuff, like plan for the future. Billy didn't see it coming. </p><p>Part of Profs!AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am My Beloved's

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt I've been meaning to get to for months and months! This is set about two and a half years after the end of There's No Textbook for This, and before Duende (if one rolls with that as canon).

_And the Crusades were God’s punishment to the Muslims for being heathens who disavowed Christ-_

Billy rubbed his eyes and groaned the sound of the pained-at-heart. “Is he kidding me?” He stared at the exam book again. “In what reality does that make any kind of logical sense? Even if the premise wasn’t horrible, you can’t make an argument out of that...” The writing was scribbly, but turning it upside down didn’t make it say anything more useful. Nor did taking off his glasses and shoving them up on top of his head. It was still deeply wrong, just a blurrier kind of deeply wrong.

“Keep doing that and you’re going to need bifocals before you’re thirty-five.” A poke from behind him sent Billy’s glasses sliding back down his forehead to land on the tip of his nose. Teddy followed a second later, flinging his legs over the back of their old couch and sliding down to sit behind Billy, tucked in between his back and the pile of cushions. The cushions were a standard thing; they helped to separate him from the pile of marked term papers and the stack of unmarked ones, and the exams that were threatening to eat the living room floor.

Teddy called it his ‘marking nest’ and made endless jokes about ‘area effect spells,’ but at least he wasn’t as bad as Danny Rand, building walls of paperwork across his desk to hide behind when avoiding Carol.

Definitely not as bad yet.

It was getting harder to concentrate on what he was supposed to be doing, which was grading exams, because his ridiculous boyfriend had settled himself down in between Billy and the couch, framing him between Teddy’s thighs. Teddy’s chest pressed up against his back, warm in the late spring air, and his arms fit just like _that_ in behind and along Billy’s. He dug his chin into Billy’s shoulder, nuzzled his nose into Billy’s didn’t-bother-to-shave-today prickles, and Billy could feel the way his head tilted when he smiled.

He could fall asleep like this, wrapped up in Teddy’s arms, folded safe between his legs, just, curl up and nestle in and maybe by the time they woke up, the papers and exams would have marked themselves. Ugh.

“I hate end of term,” he said, and dropped the exam back on the pile. “And that’s not how eyes work, for the record.”

“You sure about that?” Teddy asked, his voice a low rumble and puffs of his breath hot against Billy’s ear. He wrapped his arms loosely around Billy. “Or you could get those little reading glasses that sit at the end of your nose,” he suggested, and Billy prodded Teddy’s gut with a gentle elbow. “Oof.”

“You have a thing for Hot Jewish Santa?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of Mr. Magoo.”

“You have some weird fetishes, Tee.”

And who would have figured that it would all work out this way? If you’d told him, four years ago, that Nate would one day be out of his life for good; that he’d meet and fall madly in love with Dr. Ted Altman; that Teddy would turn out to love him back, as often as he didn’t deserve it... as cliché as the refrain went, he’d have laughed in his own face. A lot. Guys like him didn’t end up with guys like Teddy. Dorks and nerds didn’t win the heart of the gorgeous jock-types. Not unless the jocks were also nerds at heart, that was.

The solid wall of blond muscle behind him made that whole line of thought a totally moot point. They’d just celebrated a third anniversary (of sleeping together), a third anniversary (of getting back together) and a third anniversary (of moving in together).

That had been the point where Kate had threatened to rip his head off if he came up with an excuse for another one.

And now Teddy had just gotten his tenure appointment, which meant they were both permanently settled in New York, and as long as he didn’t end up stabbing one his students, things were just about as perfect as they could get.

So why was Teddy tense, his shoulders and arms stiff, his nose buried against the nape of Billy’s neck?

“You okay?” he asked, because he absolutely refused to freak out about something that could be nothing. Not this time.

“Been thinking,” Teddy said into Billy’s hair, before flipping them both up and over so that Billy landed on his back on the couch. Teddy dumped the stack of exams off the side and settled between his legs. Not in a sexy way, sadly, but with his arms resting on Billy’s thighs and his chin propped on his hands.

“A dangerous pastime.”

“I know.” Teddy wrinkled his nose at Billy and grinned. “Seriously. Just for a minute, but there you have it. Now that we’ve both got tenure, we qualify to book sabbaticals in the next couple of  years.”

“Yeah,” Billy’s muscles unlocked and he the last vestiges of worry drained away. “We should figure out where we want to go. Research trip? Caribbean cruise? What’s on your list besides writing book number two?”

Teddy frowned, not nearly as excited about those options as he should have been. He looked super-serious all of a sudden, studying the folds of Billy`s shirt where it pushed up over his waistband, and chewing on his bottom lip. “I was thinking something else,” he said, after a pause long enough to make Billy want to scream. Billy reached out to ruffle Teddy's hair, make contact in a way that wasn't too pushy or weird. Teddy leaned into it, nuzzled his palm, then dragged Billy's shirt up with his thumbs and blew a raspberry on his stomach.

“Ow!”

“Ow? That's what you're going with?” he grinned wide as Billy tried to push him off, and they teetered on the edge of the couch for a second before - oh god - rolling off as Teddy overbalanced, his eyes flying open. He grabbed Billy's arm and they went over, landing on the floor with a thump that rattled the glasses on the low coffee table.

“So much for being serious grownups,” Teddy laughed, and stretched out on the floor, hands behind his head. “Maybe it's a dumb idea.”

“You still haven't told me what 'it' is,” Billy said pointedly, draping himself over Teddy's prone form. Payback and all, not to mention the excuse to feel  the hitch in Teddy's hips as he lay down, and to rest his ear against the rapid beating of his heart.

It beat faster, and Billy frowned against Teddy's t-shirt.

“I was thinking,” Teddy began again, his voice coming from over Billy's head. “A full year with both of us not teaching would be really good timing to have a kid.”

“A what?” Billy's mouth opened before he could stop it, and the stupidest thing in the world came out. Because it wasn't a new thing, even if they'd never talked about in any kind of concrete way. He'd seen the way Teddy made googly eyes at every baby and ankle-biter within a forty-foot radius, and after Danny he was generally the first in line to babysit Luke and Jess's little girl. Who was, admittedly, much cuter and more interesting than Billy's brothers had ever been. Maybe it had something to do with being able to give her back afterward.

Teddy snorted. “Little human being? Noisy, smelly, good excuse to see every new animated film on opening weekend?”

“I know what kids are,” Billy grumped, the world shifting underneath him precariously. Talking about it had been easier in the abstract-someday, in the 'once we have actual job security we can start planning future stuff' kind of way, and not the 'find a woman willing to create my genetic legacy' moment of truth. “You're serious?”

He propped himself up on his hands, and stared up at the underside of Teddy's chin. It was a nice chin; would probably look pretty good on a mud-covered little version of him. And yeah. That was a nice mental image, a little version of Teddy or two running around in overalls and little... onesie... things, or footie pajamas.

Or him? Teddy wouldn’t have to be the father, necessarily, except that they’d be out of their minds to pick Billy`s uncertain and land-mine-filled genetic code over Teddy`s physical perfection.

Except, of course, for the funny way his big toenails bent upward and chewed through his socks, and the allergy to sulpha drugs. And the distressing propensity for his family members to die young. Could breast cancer be passed down through male children? Would it be an issue if Teddy had a daughter? They knew for sure that Billy's mom had issues, and anything about his father was still a total blank slate. He'd inherited some of her mental illness already, and it was only by luck of the draw that he'd ended up with the depression and not the psychosis. He and Tommy _seemed_  healthy otherwise, but there was no way of knowing what else lurked deep in their genetic codes, or what could be passed on to potential kids.

Holy shit, _kids_. Were they actually talking about this? Because he wasn’t old enough to be a...

Oh no. Jeff had been the age Billy was now when the Kaplans had adopted Billy. He _was_ technically old enough, if you went by that example.

“Bee?” Teddy propped himself up on his elbows and stared at him with a furrowed brow. “You still in there?”

 _No._  “You want to have kids now?”

Teddy kept frowning, and tipped his head side to side in a noncommittal way. “Not _now_ , now, but in a couple of years, why not? We’re as stable at work as we’ll ever be, and that will give us time to look for a bigger apartment, and figure out all the logistics.”

“You’re making it sound like a military campaign. Logistics?” And in the middle of all the stupid questions that kept fumbling their way out of his mouth, he was losing sight of the really important part of this. Teddy wanted to have kids _with him._

Well, not _with_ him, with-him, not unless he knew someone with a really high-tech genetics lab. But signing on to raise a kid – possibly more – with him, that was a lifetime thing. A forever-us thing. An ‘I like you enough to commit to attending every one of your family celebrations from now until one of our deaths’ thing. 

“Do we want to adopt or use a surrogate,” Teddy was saying, running his fingers up and down the length of Billy’s spine. “And if we do, who, and which of us to – you know – “ he gestured vaguely in the air, the tips of his ears turning pink. “Or if we wanted to do both of us, or whatever. It would take a while to decide on a surrogate, and adoption needs home-studies and there are waiting lists, so that takes time too.”

“You’ve really researched this,” Billy blurted out, his brain still stuck back somewhere on the ‘kids’ thing, stuttering around on a single small track.

 “If you don’t want to-” Teddy interrupted. The wistfulness in his voice and the threat of having that future-promised snatched away as quickly as it had been offered made Billy’s decision for him.

He shook his head, half-sitting up with his arms on either side of Teddy’s ribcage. “I didn’t say that. I think,” Billy said, and faltered. The pictures in his mind came faster and brighter now that he’d started to process the idea.

  _Teddy throwing a football around with a sturdy little girl, all blonde curls and skinned knees. Sitting on the edge of a single bed and reading stories to a tow-headed toddler, making dragons out of his fingers and flying them through the air together. The table piled high with papers and binders, some his, some Teddy’s, some grade school homework marked with a bright gold star and pictures in crayon stuck with a magnet on to the fridge._

Teddy waited, and his eyes were so blue, so honest and hopeful, a faint anticipatory smile on the curve of his lip. “I think you’ll make an incredible dad. I’m in.”

That suggestion of joy burst into full bloom, Teddy’s smile burning like the sun. He slid his fingers into Billy’s hair and held him in place, half-sitting to meet him halfway. His lips slid over Billy’s, their chests pressed together, Billy’s leg sliding between Teddy’s to pin him down and hold him steady, hips to hips and Teddy’s mouth hot against him. This was everything, the world narrowed to them, his entire world in the soft pressure of Teddy’s lips, the slow roll of their hips against each other, the press-tug-release rhythm of Teddy’s hands in his hair.

His glasses poking him in the bridge of his nose.

Teddy pushed them back up Billy’s nose with the tip of his finger as he broke the kiss. “There’s one more thing, though,” he said, and with such faked innocence that Billy glared at him suspiciously.

“What’s that, dare I ask?” He had been set up for something. Teddy’s eyes were gleaming too much for that _not_ to be the case.

“We should probably get married first,” Teddy suggested.

The world stopped.

Teddy fished in his jeans pocket for something, tipping his hips up to get at it. The stupid jerk had been preparing for this, and now he was bringing out a little velvet bag that looked like it had something expensive in it, and holy _crap_. “You’re proposing?” Billy asked. “Like this? On the floor, _after_ asking me to have babies?”

“It only makes sense,” Teddy grinned, and the elation was just rolling off of him in waves now. “We wouldn’t want anyone to think you’d knocked me up out of wedlock and all.”

 “You just proposed to me,” Billy repeated, his eyes narrowing, but the smile that was cracking his face open wide was totally giving him away.

_Teddy Altman wants to marry me. Teddy is proposing marriage to me. I’m going to marry Teddy Altman._

_‘Dr. William Altman.’ ‘Dr. Theodore Kaplan?’ No. We’re better off keeping our names._

_‘Baby Altman-Kaplan?’ It sounds like a German curse._

_I’m an enormous dork._

“That’s what it sounded like.”

“That,” Billy informed Teddy, barely managing to hold on to a straight face, “was the weakest proposal ever.”

Teddy kissed his way down Billy’s jaw, down his throat and past his adam’s apple, then bit lightly at the place where his neck connected to his shoulder. Billy shifted uncomfortably, the growing ache in his groin starting to make itself really kind of obvious to everyone involved.

“You think?” Was all that Teddy said. “I can do worse.” He smoothed his empty hand down Billy’s side, cupped his butt and squeezed.

“Try me.”

“Let’s go to Vegas – I got a two-for-one deal at a drive thru chapel.”

“I don’t know if that’s actually worse.”

Teddy unbuttoned the top three buttons on Billy’s shirt and pressed a kiss to his collarbone. “I just got fired; we should get married so I can get on your health insurance.”

“That’s pretty bad, but you can do better.”

“Marry me or I send the contents of your porn folder to your parents.”

Time to concede defeat. “Ok, that’s bad.”

Teddy pumped his fist and Billy kissed him for it, kissed him and sucked Teddy’s lower lip into his mouth, kissed the corners of his smile. _I’m going to marry Ted Altman._ “So?” Teddy asked, and Billy drew a blank.

“So, what?” he asked, and Teddy frowned.

He sat up, braced himself against the couch, and Billy moved with him to end up straddling his lap. Teddy splayed one hand out across Billy’s chest, the other still playing with that small velvet bag. “You haven’t given me an answer yet,” he said, and how could he ever imagine that Billy had a choice?

“Yes,” he said in a rush, his hands on Teddy’s shoulders, his chest, his face, sinking into his hair like spun gold. “Yes I’ll marry you. Yes, let’s talk about kids, yes, let’s mortgage our souls for a two-bedroom apartment in the city. Anything you want,” he promised recklessly. “I want it too.” And when Teddy blinked his eyes, hard, Billy kissed the dampness away from his eyelashes without saying a word. 

\--

Later, much later, towelling off his hair, Billy squeezed his hand closed for about the eightieth time and tried to imagine getting used to the solid weight of the thin band on his finger. _They don’t really make engagement rings for guys,_ Teddy had grumbled, running his finger around the edge of the band. _But it felt important, like it makes it realer._

_Realer’s not a word._

_It absolutely is. Eli creamed me with it across a triple word score last month._

_Then you need to kick his ass._

He didn’t look any different in the mirror than he had two hours ago, but something had changed inside. Something raw and wonderful, that had everything to do with the man he had just left sprawled out across his bed. Theoretically, not that much was going to change, at least for now. They already lived together, had opened a joint checking account, got invited everywhere as ‘BillyandTeddy’ all in one. A promise to sign some paperwork shouldn’t change _anything_ except their tax status.

And yet.

The Billy that smiled back at him from the mirror looked... happier, somehow, than Billy-in-the-mirror had been for a long time. Peaceful, almost, the hints of anxious ringing in the back of his mind settled and, for once, asleep.

“Bill?” Teddy called from the bedroom.

“Coming.”

He hung up his towel, and leaving the bathroom, turned off the light.

“... do you think Kate would-”

“... no. Pretty sure she wouldn’t.”

“That’s too bad. A Billy/Kate podling would be pretty damn cute.”

“You think?”

“I think.”


End file.
